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February 22, 2006

How many in there?

Frankly, I cannot see what is so wrong about asking -- merely asking -- how many Muslims are in the Army.

After all, might we not ask: How many women in the Army? How many Gurkhas in the Army? How many Majors in the Army? How many left-handed people in the Army? How many graduates in the Army? How many Punjabi-speakers in the Army? How many vegetarians in the Army? How many trained rock-climbers in the Army? How many engineers in the Army?

Which of these questions are wrong to ask, and why?

So what is wrong about asking how many Muslims are in the Army? I can't see it. And as I've just found out, neither can Seema Alavi.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

>>So what is wrong about asking how many Muslims are in the Army? I can't see it. And as I've just found out, neither can Seema Alavi.

You can't see!! Nice, pretend blind now.

Very cool. I can see NDA govt making similar announcements with our secular brigade led by Dilip crying: (A) please stop this, it's discrimination(B) why count only muslims, why not Parsis, Sikhs, Christians..(C) don't they trust our muslims soldiers to fight war against our muslim neighbours that they are being single out?(C) what next, muslim soldiers to wear green badges a la hindus in Talibani Afghanistan or Nazi Germany?

And an article requesting foreign power take over of India too would have appeared in say rediff? Wait, that did happen. Right Dilip?

Here is the comment again with some changes:If it was a broad based census, then it is a different issue. e.g :Do a break up of all communitites. Look at Gujaratis for example.After all there are very few Gujaratis in the army (my Gujarati friend in the army told me he even had problems getting marriage proposals).But this is clearly looking at one community. Once it is made public, there will be demands for reservatins in the army. The circus will start all over again. This is clearly vote-bank politics. I think the long term consequences for the country will be disastrous.

Nikhil, there have already been demands to introduce reservations for muslims in the army. The minorities commission chairman or some such person talked about this on the eve of the republic day this year. NDTV carried a brief interview with him IIRC.

nikhil, I have no problem whatsoever with such surveys being done about any community. Gujaratis included. If as you say there are very few Gujaratis in the Army, first of all how do we know that? Because someone must have counted. Second, why is that the case? Is it a matter of concern for the Army? Should the Army do anything about it? Should it be a matter of concern to the country, or to Gujarat, that there are so few Gujaratis in the Army? I mean, the questions are endless, and all worth asking.

Put this another way. Suppose the Army found it had a very small percentage of graduates. Would that require some attention?

As for this: Never thought UPA would hasten the country down the path of destruction so fast ...

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I can think of any number of other paths of destruction this govt and other govts have taken.

The information on Gujaratis was just pure verbatim from a friend. I have no statistics to back it up. I think you have partly answered the question - a broad based survey would be just that - a survey - but this survey pertains to just one community - and if it is a precursor to reservations then it smacks of vote bank politics.REgards path of destruction - it is only in teh context of the armed forces. No other govt including when Mulayam was the defence minister was such a thing done.Good news is that this survey may not be done after all